Turnabout is fair play
Democrats love to make fun of libertarians these days. Largely because conservatism is on the decline and libertarianism is on the rise. We’re just a more interesting target, and we’re the future ideas the big government crowd will be battling. Their favorite jab as of late is that Detroit is now some kind of libertarian paradise because it lacks public services. They say that libertarians should move to Somalia, because it’s an anarchic society, with no government. They say that “Detroit is now the most libertarian city”. But is that the case?
Detroit is still very much a socialist community, and has reaped the benefits of social democracy in recent years, to the extreme detriment of many of its unwitting citizens. It was reported today that the former mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in prison for corruption. These are the leaders the people of Detroit have chosen. These are people for whom nothing can be done if it is not done by government. Newark Mayor and senate candidate Cory Booker believes this.
But social democrats ignore the fact that Detroit has been run into the ground by the ‘liberals’ for the last 60 years. Also, public services aren’t the deciding factor for a libertarian society vs. a socialist one. If social democrats believed that libertarians would pine for Somalia, they must consider two things:
#1. Somalia’s state of anarchy has been a boon to a nation that has seen the spontaneous generation of free markets. They are relatively more free than they were before. In this sense, anarchy is a step up. Ask yourself if you would rather have anarchy if the alternative is a genocidal dictator?
#2. Democrats must admit that they secretly are pining for a society resembling North Korea. They say so with their own words at their rallies. I myself know this is true, as I conducted several first-hand investigative reports and fact-finding missions amongst Occupy Wall Street’s throngs. There were very many committed communists and apologists for Stalin and Che Guevera, the Butcher of La Cabana, murderer of homosexuals and persecutor of jazz musicians.
Some would argue this is a strawman, but I feel it must be addressed and is not an exaggeration. If libertarians must listen to the supplicants to authority at MSNBC compare Somalia to Detroit and paint it as libertarian, then it deserves a response on equal footing. After all, we’ve all read Rules for Radicals, haven’t we?
WATCH: Somalian Pirates vs. Russian Soldiers Combat Footage
Liberals will invoke ‘McCarthyism’ and ‘witch hunts’ when you bring up “C” or “S” words in civic debates. But I don’t shy from it for the simple reason that they don’t shy away from it themselves. So I understand that the establishment propaganda that is force-fed to Americans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is going to play both sides of the ideological back and forth and lie to the public what they really believe. They will act innocent as to their true intentions, while concealing their hidden agenda in order to get people to accept central planning. It’s the boiling frog metaphor.
I say, lay it bare! What have you to fear, if you have nothing to hide? The only open and honest Marxists I know tend to be damn good people, and that’s because they’re honest (if maybe a little confused).
WATCH: TLR EDITOR AUSTIN PETERSEN VS. NOTORIOUS PH.D. PROFESSOR MARK NAISON – LIBERTARIAN V. SOCIALISM DEBATE
But as French legislator Frederic Bastiat once stated:
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
That is nearly in total the entire problem with the philosophy of social democracy, socialism, communism, or any ideology that has at its core the central control over the individual.
Sadly, collectivists who may mean well can’t piece together the simple fact that the ideal society would be a voluntary society. And in reality, ideal civil society and superior civilization arises as a direct correlation of the amount of personal freedom the community enjoys. It could be better in a more libertarian republic. The American republic was formed as one, and it could be once again.
Still, if they choose not to agree ultimately… they can always move to North Korea.
